Post date: Oct 15, 2015 4:44:52 AM
The painter crew finished the doors and most of the door jambs today. Not only did they stain the wood, but they conditioned it prior to staining and then coated the stained wood with a mixture of polyurethane and lacquer. The conditioner helps the wood take the stain more evenly and the top coat is supposedly really tough. They will return to repaint the edges of the drywall where it abuts the stained wood, because they got a little stain on the paint and they are faster than we are at edges. Also they will spray the louvered doors and the many pieces of wood trim than need painting. I painted the doors into the laundry/bath area and they look good now.
The tile work is still not finished. The soap niche took more tile than we planned. The 32 cuts left a lot of small pieces that we cannot use elsewhere. Now there is a bigger niche to tile and it has five vertical sides. We might be able to use some of the off-cut ends, but it will be close. Regardless, we need at least one more box of 30 tiles (at $4/tile), which is special order from California and therefore incurs considerable freight, as glass is heavy.
I must say that it looks nice, and I am guilty of egging them on to make it fancier.
The furnace arrived today and is hanging in the mechanical room on the roof (seen from the doorway at left). The ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator) is connected, and (after the workers left) I plugged it in to see how noisy or quiet it would be and to remove the smell of paint solvent from the house. That little room is now crowded with a furnace hanging right in the middle. The duct work comes next, but I know not when. I installed a magnetic door stop on the door to that room so that the prevailing wind does not shut the door when we are working inside.My old impact driver — with all its bits — reappeared in the community barn. I think someone borrowed it, as the contents of the box were not organized in the way I kept it. I am glad to get all the drill and screwdriver bits back, but not glad to have spent $300 on a replacement, even though the new one is lighter and smaller and just as powerful. I neglected to put it away one afternoon about a month ago and it was gone the next day.
Next big things finishing the house will be the trim (baseboard, door casing, and picture molding), installing the bifold doors, and reinstalling the wood doors now that they are stained.